Is It Good for the Jews? More Stories from the Old Country and the New

151 Pages·2009·0.55 MB·English

by  Adam Biro

Is It
Good for
the Jews?

Is It
Good for
the Jews?
MORE STORIES FROM
THE OLD COUNTRY
AND THE NEW
Adam Biro
Translated by Catherine Tihanyi
the university of chicago press
chicago and london
adam biro is founder of the Parisian art book publishing
house Biro Éditeur. He is the author of nine previous books, in-
cluding Two Jews on a Train and One Must Also Be Hungarian, also
published by the University of Chicago Press. catherine
tihanyi is a translator and research associate in the Anthro-
pology Department at Western Washington University.
The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637
The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London
© 2009 by The University of Chicago
All rights reserved. Published 2009
Printed in the United States of America
17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 09 1 2 3 4 5
isbn-13: 978-0-226-05217-5 (cloth)
isbn-10: 0-226-05217-6 (cloth)
Biro, Adam.
[Marchand de lunettes et mes autres histoires juives. English]
Is it good for the Jews? : more stories from the old country and
the new / Adam Biro ; translated by Catherine Tihanyi.
p. cm.
Sequel to “Two Jews on a train”.
isbn-13: 978-0-226-05217-5 (cloth : alk. paper)
isbn-10: 0-226-05217-6 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Jews—Social life
and customs—Fiction. 2. Jews —Social life and customs —
Humor. I. Tihanyi, Catherine. II. Title.
pq2662.i733m3713 2009
843'.914—dc22 2009020092
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum
requirements of the American National Standard for Infor-
mation Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library
Materials, ansi z39.48–1992.
contents
Preface vii Translator’s Acknowledgments viii
1 ✶ In Lieu of an Epigraph a brief story containing
within itself all the following ones 3
2 ✶ The Officer’s Ring 5
3 ✶ In Praise of Anti-Semites 14
4 ✶ Of Humility 20
5 ✶ Okuláré 25
6 ✶ Of Wisdom 30 10 ✶ Of Numbers 51
7 ✶ Of Children 36 11 ✶ Thirsty for More 56
8 ✶ Wailing 43 12 ✶ Of Privileges 59
9 ✶ Of Education 47 13 ✶ Environment 63
14 ✶ Of Strength (of Conviction) 67
15 ✶ In English in the Text 73
16 ✶ A Witz for All Seasons 75
17 ✶ Of Jews and of Others 79
18 ✶ Di Ganef, Di Willst Davenen! 83
19 ✶ Assimilation 86
20 ✶ You Can’t Escape Your Fate 93
21 ✶ Two Geopolitical Lessons 97
22 ✶ In Someone Else’s Shoes 103
23 ✶ He Who Hunts . . . 109
24 ✶ The World of Business 114
25 ✶ Games of Chance 118
26 ✶ The Emigrant 121
27 ✶ Of Money, Still 124
28 ✶ Of Us and Them, of Them and Us 132
29 ✶ The Negotiation 135
Afterword 141
preface
In an earlier book, Two Jews on a Train, I attempted to invent stories, to
tell short stories based on jokes whose endings are known to everyone,
that is to all lovers of Jewish stories.
This idea appears to have been appreciated, so I am repeating it
here with other stories.
However, this new book differs from the preceding one. Here, I’m
not so much concerned with telling jokes, but—please forgive my lack
of humbleness—with creating literature. I am also aiming at giving
more depth to my short stories, making them relevant to the present,
politicizing, uncovering their links to the grande Histoire, to a mostly
recent history, but to an older one as well.
Moreover, for this new volume, I did read scholarly and semischol-
arly works, analyses, and books, including even the Talmud, partly in
order to find inspiration in the very roots of Jewish humor and partly
to understand its mechanism, its whys and wherefores.
I came to the tentative, unavoidably tentative, conclusion that Jew-
ish stories don’t have specific principles and structures. They resem-
ble every people’s stories, yet at the same time, because the “heroes”
are Jews, there is no other writing that can translate or better narrate
their soul, history, millennial suffering, their few joys—there’s noth-
ing more revelatory of the Jewish being.1
paris, july 2008
1. In contrast to all of the books I read, I will not provide any explanation of the orthography
of Hebrew and Yiddish words. I am following no rule except that of usage and my needs.
[Some of the orthography of common Hebrew and Jewish words has become part
of the English language; thus I am following established practice wherever it is indic-
ated. — trans.]
translator’s acknowledgments
My thanks to Adam Biro for tirelessly answering my questions and
for kindly reading the translation and making further suggestions. In
the process he also made some changes from the original French. My
thanks also to T. David Brent for entrusting me with this translation
and to Paul Stoller for reading it and contributing some fine sugges-
tions. Last but not least, my thanks to Carol F. Saller for her excellent
copyediting of this book.
Is It
Good for
the Jews?